Penn Researchers Establish Universal Signature Fundamental to How Glassy Materials Fail
Dropping a smartphone on its glass screen, which is made of atoms jammed together with no discernible order, could result in it shattering. Unlike metals and other crystalline materials, glass and many other disordered solids cannot be deformed significantly before failing and, because of their lack of crystalline order, it is difficult to predict which […]
What Can Twitter Reveal About People With ADHD? Penn Researchers Provide Answers
What can Twitter reveal about people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD? Quite a bit about what life is like for someone with the condition, according to findings published by University of Pennsylvania researchers Sharath Chandra Guntuku and Lyle Ungar in the Journal of Attention Disorders. Twitter data might also provide clues to help facilitate more effective […]
Penn Researchers Working to Mimic Giant Clams to Enhance the Production of Biofuel
Alison Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania has been studying giant clams since she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Sweeney, an assistant professor of physics in the Penn School of Arts and Sciences, and her collaborator Shu Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering in the School of […]
Penn Researchers Engineer Macrophages to Engulf Cancer Cells in Solid Tumors
One reason cancer is so difficult to treat is that it avoids detection by the body. Agents of the immune system are constantly checking the surfaces of cells for chemical signals that say they belong, but cancer cells express the same chemical signals as healthy ones. Without a way for the immune system to tell […]
Penn Professors Lead Call for Ethical Framework for New ‘Mind Control’ Technologies
As interventions for mental illnesses and neurological disorders are becoming increasingly powerful, an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, American University and Duke University are calling for new safeguards to guide treatments and protect patients.
Penn Collaboration Produces Surprising Insights Into the White Spots on Butterfly Wings
A collaboration between biologists and materials scientists at the University of Pennsylvania is yielding new insights into the wings of the “skipper butterfly” in the Costa Rican rainforest. What they learn could lead to technological advancements in systems ranging from power-efficient computer displays to sensors to energy efficient buildings, windows and vehicles.
Penn Engineers Demonstrate a ‘Hybrid Nanomanufacturing’ System
Nanoscale structures have properties that can’t be achieved in any other way, stemming from precise control over the structure’s composition and geometry. Unfortunately, simultaneously achieving high levels of control of both characteristics can be challenging. Bottom-up, self-assembly methods can carefully tailor the chemical makeup a nanoparticle, but are limited in their ability to control the […]
A $14 million grant to improve mobility and safety in transportation
Penn, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), is participating in a $14 million, five-year transportation research grant to establish a new national University Transportation Center (UTC) called Mobility21. The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) with the hopes of increasing both mobility and safety on the road. It is the third […]
Penn Researchers Shed Light on the Roundworm’s Curious Swimming Behavior
The round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode, is a puzzling creature. A previous study at the University of Pennsylvania established that, in some cases, these nematodes are actually counter-current and swim upstream rather than with the flow of liquid as a result of hydrodynamic forces. Another study indicated that they tend to accumulate next to […]